Alaska’s government and its future are on opposite sides in court

The first months of 2021′s summer bring with them a wave of excitement as we are able to gather together after the pandemic. We are on a precipice at the end of the COVID crisis and are tipping back toward normality. Yet, as young Alaskans, this wave of joy at the end of quarantine is coupled with fear as we look to a future endangered by the climate crisis.

June gave unprecedented heat in the Northwest, resulting in apocalyptic conditions. Here in Alaska, we continue to watch our waters acidify, our permafrost melt and our local ecosystems destabilize. Our news feed, conversations and daily reality are increasingly filled with concern for our future.

Four years ago, alongside 14 other young Alaskans and supported by Our Children’s Trust, we joined Sagoonick v. State of Alaska – a lawsuit challenging Alaska’s policy of promoting fossil fuels, which jeopardizes our constitutional rights to a safe climate and livable future. While we wait for a decision from the Alaska Supreme Court on whether our case can move forward, the state continues to support fossil fuel development, even against public interest.

Meanwhile, the State of Alaska is attempting to intervene in Juliana v. United States, a case playing out in federal court challenging the national government’s contributions to climate change as violating the constitutional rights of young people. As in our case, the state argues that the courts can’t hear the claims in Juliana and that Alaska needs to intervene to prevent any movement in the case that might impact Alaska’s fossil fuel development.

Yet while the state argues that courts shouldn’t try the Sagoonick and Juliana cases, the very same administration has filed multiple suits in federal courts challenging federal policies that the state worries would affect fossil fuels. They’ve run to the courts when it serves their ends, but when we, a group of young people with legitimate damages wrought by the climate crisis, try to avail ourselves of these same courts, the state claims we can’t.

We, the plaintiffs in the Sagoonick case, come from front-line communities where we have already seen firsthand the impact of the climate crisis. We’ve spent our entire lives watching our state government exacerbate the crisis, ignoring our voices and our rights. With each day, it becomes clear how critical the justice system will be in deciding our future.

The last months have been filled with landmark cases around the world securing legal rights to a safe climate. Courts in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Australia, Columbia and others have ruled that human rights cases based on climate change belong in the courts, with many finding that actions and policies that worsen climate change violate fundamental rights

With a decision imminent on whether we can move forward in our case, we are hopeful that the Alaska Supreme Court will join courts across the globe in keeping the courthouse doors open to us – young people trying to secure our fundamental right to a livable future.

Linnea Lentfer and Brian Conwell are two of 16 plaintiffs in Sagoonick v. State of Alaska, which is pending in the Alaska Supreme Court. Linnea lives in Gustavus and Brian in Dutch Harbor; both are born-and-raised Alaskans.

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